


[Cover Art] for "Black Dog or Requiem for an Idiot" by Aderyn

by Hamstermoon



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 16:40:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4312554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hamstermoon/pseuds/Hamstermoon





	[Cover Art] for "Black Dog or Requiem for an Idiot" by Aderyn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Black Dog, or Elegy for an Idiot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/324804) by [aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn). 



I am very surprised I missed this one of Aderyn's stories when she wrote it originally; never mind, I have found it now and produced cover art too! I'm struck by the fact that while it's a Post-Riechenbachian tale about depression (Churchill named his suffering 'the black dog') ACD partly based his own spectral Hound on a legend local to where I now live. Doyle holidayed in Cromer in Norfolk and played golf on the course which over-looks Beeston Bump a seaside hill supposedly to be haunted by Black Shuck. _"The peasants believe in a goblin headless dog, 'Old Shuck', which runs, coal-black in colour, and with flaming eyes, between Overstrand and Beeston, on stormy nights." M. E. Walcott: 'Guide to Coasts of Essex, Suffolk & Norfolk' (1860), p. 111._ The dog on the cover here comes from a photo of a weather vane in Bungay in Suffolk which also had a visit from the Shuck, as have many other towns and villages, each with their particular story. The other dog whith shiny eyes is a neighbour's very old wuffie who had terrible cataracts and who I met when I was first moving into my flat. I was sure the Shuck had come to visit me, but if he does that to a woman it's supposed to have a better outcome than someone male!

 

[ ](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/sD1o9WKpAfsqRznhOHf0j9MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite)

[](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/5IRLqPkX5DxHYi7EQ7l1etMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite)

<http://norfolkcoast.co.uk/myths/ml_blackshuck.htm>


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